{"id":3892039,"url":"https://alion.io/job/openai-mechanical-engineer-power-generation","title":"Mechanical Engineer, Power Generation","company":{"id":2,"name":"OpenAI","domain":"openai.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/openai","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":79,"open_postings":199,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.829,"repost_share":0.01,"time_to_fill_p50_days":51,"computed_at":"2026-11-08T05:47:12Z"}},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":257000,"max":327000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":327000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"OpenAI","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-06T21:40:13Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-06","last_verified_at":"2026-11-08T07:02:48Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":1,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":1},"description":"About the Team\nOpenAI, in close collaboration with our capital and delivery partners, is building the infrastructure required to support frontier AI systems. The Data Center Engineering team defines repeatable technical standards and carries them through design, construction, commissioning, and operational readiness. The team works across data center facilities, power generation, compute infrastructure, construction, procurement, and operations to deliver reliable capacity at unprecedented scale and speed.\nAbout the Role\nWe are seeking a Mechanical Engineer to design and integrate power-generation and balance-of-plant systems for large AI data center campuses. You will work across prime movers, fuel systems, exhaust, ventilation, cooling, water treatment, heat recovery, acoustics, fire interfaces, and plant auxiliaries. The role combines first-principles engineering with practical vendor and field execution to deliver systems that are safe, efficient, maintainable, and ready for demanding operating profiles.\nTravel: 50%\nKey Responsibilities\nDevelop mechanical basis-of-design documents, process flow diagrams, P&IDs, specifications, calculations, and equipment requirements for power generation facilities.\n\nDesign and review prime-mover auxiliaries, fuel gas or liquid fuel systems, exhaust, ventilation, cooling, lubrication, compressed air, water treatment, and heat-recovery systems.\n\nEvaluate thermal performance, hydraulic behavior, pressure drop, vibration, acoustics, emissions interfaces, redundancy, and maintenance requirements.\n\nTranslate generation duty cycles and data center load profiles into equipment sizing, operating envelopes, and control requirements.\n\nReview OEM and EPC proposals, equipment selections, test plans, failure modes, service strategies, and lifecycle tradeoffs.\n\nSupport procurement, factory acceptance testing, construction, startup, commissioning, performance testing, and root-cause investigations.\n\nCoordinate interfaces with electrical, controls, CSA, fuel supply, environmental, fire protection, and data center mechanical teams.\n\nCreate repeatable mechanical reference designs and standards for future generation deployments.\n\nQualifications\n8+ years of mechanical engineering experience on power generation, oil and gas, industrial utilities, central plants, or mission-critical projects.\n\nStrong knowledge of rotating equipment, piping, heat transfer, fluid systems, thermal performance, ventilation, and mechanical auxiliaries.\n\nExperience with combined heat and power, heat recovery, modular generation, or microgrids.\n\nExperience with gas turbines, reciprocating engines, generators, or comparable large industrial equipment.\n\nAbility to evaluate vendor data, equipment curves, operating scenarios, failure modes, and maintenance constraints.\n\nExperience carrying designs through construction, startup, commissioning, and performance validation.\n\nKnowledge of applicable ASME, API, NFPA, ASHRAE, and environmental requirements.\n\nBachelor's degree in mechanical engineering or a related field.\n\nPreferred Skills\nProfessional Engineer license.\n\nExperience with process simulation, hydraulic modeling, CFD, or equipment-performance modeling.\n\nExperience supporting high-density data center loads and rapid infrastructure deployment.\n\nAbout OpenAI\nOpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.\nWe are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.\nFor additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.\nBackground checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.\nTo notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.\nWe are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.\nOpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy\nAt OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. 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